There has been much talk this week about private schools and whether we, the working class, should continue to fund them. There has been unsurprisingly little talk about the paltry levels of tax some the wealthiest parents in the land are paying, or about how some of the poorest schools are being devastated by cuts.

The shock and consternation began when Labour Party Minister of State Alan Kelly suggested on RTE’s The Week in Politics that the State subsidy of €96 million a year to private schools couldn’t continue. There were even more palpitations among the ruling class when the Minister for Education, Ruairi Quinn – a former pupil of Blackrock College, Dublin - said the next day that no decision had yet been made but the “Cabinet must examine all options”.

Cue the many pained defences of the “value” private schools give. Eoghan Murphy the slick, spoilt boy wonder of Fine Gael was among the first out to say that while the schools got almost €100 million a year “there is a saving to the State to the tune of €93 million” because he said it was €3,500 a year cheaper to have a child taught in a private school than in a public one.

His solution was to effectively cut teachers’ pay instead. He said the children of the super-rich should continue to be subsidised by hard pressed workers, while the €63 million due in increments to teachers next year should be stopped. Minister for Transport, Leo Varadkar – former pupil of King’s Hospital school in Palmerstown, Co Dublin - said scrapping the subsidy would save nothing in the end.

Private Privilege

Junior finance minister, Brian Hayes – who boarded at Garbally College in Ballinasloe, Co Galway - said people who argued against the subsidy just hadn’t “their facts straight”, while Fianna Fail’s Barry Cowen – old boy of the Cistercian College, Roscrea, Co Tipperary – defended the subsidy saying it would cost more in the long run to scrap it.

It’s also interesting to look at some who didn’t comment. Also silent were Minister for Agriculture, Simon Coveney, who went to Clongowes College in Co Kildare; Minister for Jobs, Richard Bruton, formerly of Belvedere College, Dublin and Clongowes, and, Minister for Justice, Alan Shatter, old boy of the High School, Rathgar in Dublin, now charging €5,150 a year.

Public austerity

If one looks at what’s happening in the State schooling sector it doesn’t take long to realise how obscene it is to even consider continuing pumping hundreds of millions into rich kids’ school days. Earlier this year our privately-educated Minister announced he was taking 428 teachers out of the poorest deis (Delivery Equality of Opportunity In Schools) schools in the country. After thousands of teachers, parents and children took to the streets, week after week in the winter months, he climbed down and agreed to retain 235 of the teaching posts in the urban deis schools.

It still meant deis schools faced bigger class sizes and in typical school-bully fashion he announced he would be cutting capitation support to all schools, meaning they have had to struggle more than ever this year to pay for such basics as heating and light. It is doubtful any private school has had to choose between light and heat this year.

There have still been cuts to island schools and cuts to the rural deis schools went ahead. In the past three years there has been a loss of 1,000 teaching posts at second level, leading to a big increase in class sizes for State exam classes and reduction in subject choices; a 100 per cent elimination all Traveller resource teachers; a loss of special needs assistants in classes as well as English-support teachers for immigrant children and cuts in teacher-training colleges.

Contrast the lives of the children and young people in the 56 fee-paying schools with the 200,000 children in consistent poverty. That means they may not have two pairs of strong shoes, or a warm coat, or may be able to buy only second-hand clothes, or may be unable to eat a decent dinner with any regularity.

There is no credible argument in favour of private schools. If the parents who fund them can afford them they can afford to pay higher taxes. Private schools should be closed or opened to all. All children should, as a basic human right, be educated, supported and encouraged to flourish, in a decent, fair and socialist society - at no charge to their parents, no matter who they are.